INVEST IN HUMAN SECURITY

Submission to the Pre-Budget Consultations
of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance
by KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives/
Initiatives canadiennes oecum



éniques pour la justice

October 16, 2001

KAIROS is a newly-constituted coalition of Canadian churches, church based
agencies and religious organizations dedicated to promoting human rights,
justice and peace, viable human development and universal solidarity.
Members of KAIROS include the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian
Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, the Canadian Conference
of Catholic Bishops, the Canadian Religious Conference, the Christian
Reformed Church in North America, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada,
the Mennonite Central Committee Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada,
the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund, and the United Church of
Canada. Most of the organizations and individuals who come before you during
these pre-budget consultations will make recommendations about the manner in
hich the government should raise its revenues and how those revenues should
be allocated among its various activities and responsibilities.  KAIROS would
like, instead, to talk about the principles that we believe should guide those
decisions.

The actions of the federal government following the horrific and tragic
terrorist attacks of September 11 demonstrate how quickly, where there is
the political will, the means can be found to subsidize airlines or launch
military action.  Meanwhile, long-standing commitments to ending child poverty
or increasing international development assistance languish because there is
no money.  Moreover, there is also a danger that Canada's new security agenda
will crowd out funding commitments to health, education and social spending.
Indeed there are some who have exploited the September 11 tragedy and its
aftermath to advance long-standing agendas, which include tightening our refugee

and immigration policy, dismantling the public health and social infrastructure
and increasing military spending.

The shock and grief that Canadians have felt at the terrorist attack of
September
11 on the US arise out of our horror that innocent and vulnerable lives - so
close
to home - where cut short by sudden and violent death. We want to condemn the
action, show compassion to the victims and survivors, bring the perpetrators
to justice, and take every measure possible to ensure that such attacks are
never repeated and never played out in out own cities and communities. It is
therefore natural to want to pour our country's resources and energies into
this dire situation. At the same time, we must never forget that innocent and
vulnerable lives are continually being cut short - not necessarily by sudden
and violent death, but often by a more gradual and less dramatic submission
to life-threatening conditions.

On September 11, 2001, 35,000 of the world's children starved to death.1
Sixteen thousand people die prematurely each year in Canada because of air
pollution.2   Unacceptable levels of poverty in Canada also causes unnecessary
deaths. One in four years lost because of premature death can be attributed
to income inequality and the greatest proportion of these were years lost to
heart disease.3  Were our national cardiovascular death rate to equal that of
the wealthiest 20 per cent of neighbourhoods, there would 6,000 fewer Canadian
deaths each year from heart disease.   Unlike the terrorist attacks in
Washington
and New York, these were all wholly preventable tragedies, even though they did
not get live television coverage. The real threat to our security and well-being

are the thousands of children and their families who live and die unnoticed in
refugee camps around the world, the millions of Canadian children who lack the
means and support to grow into strong, productive and engaged citizens of this
country, and the hundreds of adult Canadian poor who die unnecessarily on the
streets or in over-crowded hospital corridors.  Cutting humanitarian aid,
eviscerating health and other human infrastructure and refusing to address the
causes of environmental degradation in order to increase so-called 'security
spending' may well result in far more unnecessary deaths than the security
measures and military actions are intended to prevent.  In the end, millions
of dollars spent on beefed-up airport security only leaves you with beefed-up
airport security.  Spending the same millions on human infrastructure would
not only be a moral and just choice, it would also produce far wider-ranging
and longer-lasting improvements in global security.

Canadian churches have supported the need for increased security measures to
protect our communities against acts of terrorism, but have also warned that
our security can never be ensured primarily through military means.  We cannot
let the events of September 11 undermine our collective commitment to values
of equality, human rights, social and ecological justice. While some adjustments

in the Federal Budget will be required to account for the apparent downturn in
the economy and to pay for some legitimate increase in security measures, we
must not allow the events of September 11 to erode our commitments to ending
child poverty, ensuring quality, universally-accessible health care, redressing
injustices against aboriginal peoples, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and
creating affordable housing.

For many years, Canadian churches have advocated a human security approach as
the
best way to ensure our collective safety and well being.  The dimensions of the
term human security are expressed in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1948, to which Canada is a
signatory, and which begins: Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and the
right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood,

old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

The current terrorist threat is best addressed in the long-term by addressing
the
root causes of terrorism - reducing global disparities in wealth and providing
increased resources for human development in troubled societies in order to
discourage support for terrorism.

1 Maude Barlow, "The charge of the trade brigade", Globe and Mail, October 10,
2001, Page A21.
2.John Last, Konia Trouton, and David Pengelly, Taking Our Breath Away: The
Health Effects of Air Pollution and Climate Change, David Suzuki Foundation,
1998.
3 Dennis Raphael,"Inequality is Bad for Our Hearts: Why Low Income and Social
Exclusion are Major Causes of Heart Disease in Canada" North York Heart
Health Network, 2001.